A news media bailout? That’s not going to happen, the federal government has confirmed.

That declaration came as Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly on Thursday announced her blueprint for how to better support Canada’s cultural industries in the digital age and better promote Canadian content.

Joly’s much-anticipated plan signalled that the federal government cares about a healthy news sector and wants to support journalism in Canada, but it offered little detail on how the government intends to provide that support. The minister, however, said loud and clear that Ottawa will not be throwing a lifeline to media outlets, most of whom are bleeding money and struggling to adapt for the digital age.

“Our approach will not be to bail out industry models that are no longer viable,” Joly said in a speech delivered at an Economic Club of Canada event. “Rather, we will focus our efforts on supporting innovation, experimentation and transition to digital.”

Joly’s long-awaited cultural policy reveal comes after nearly a year and a half of consultations with stakeholder and consumers. The minister’s plan mainly focuses on bolstering the country’s creative and artistic sectors and the production and promotion of Canadian content. It includes a $500 million investment from Netflix into original productions in Canada over the next five years.

Joly’s speech also comes months after the parliamentary Canadian heritage committee tabled its report on the state of local news in Canada, which included 20 recommendations for the federal government. Specifically on the issue of funding, the Liberal-dominated committee called on the government create a “new funding model … that would support Canadian journalistic content.”

More specific recommendations from the committee report included creating tax credits for media outlets investing in the transition from print to digital; establishing start-up funding for new digital media companies; amending tax laws to allow for philanthropic financing of journalism; implementing tax deductions to encourage advertisers to place ads on Canadian websites; and expanding the Canada Periodical Fund.

Save for the Canada Periodical Fund, Joly did not touch on any of those ideas Thursday. And while the minister gave the fund – which provides financial assistance to print publications to help them remain accessible to readers – a nod in her speech, she did not provide any details or figures on how the government would modernize it, only saying that the government’s programs must “provide the support (publications) need to innovate, adapt and transition onto the platforms Canadians choose.”

The lack of detail came as a disappointment to News Media Canada – a national association that represents 800 print and digital media outlets. Earlier this year, the association called on the federal government to inject $350 million into updating and expanding the Canada Periodical Fund.

“All she talked about was changing the criteria… so I don’t know what that means exactly,” Bob Cox, chair of News Media Canada, said Thursday afternoon. “We’d hoped to see more… even if the idea of supporting journalistic content was rejected, we’d sort of hoped for something more concrete in the way of helping us transition (to digital).”

“I think there’s a distaste among certain people in government for anything that gets labelled a bailout. We never argued for a bailout. We argued for supporting news gathering and putting news gathering into that idea that it’s Canadian content that needs support… and she didn’t buy that idea.”

While the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) did not call for similar infusions of money, its president Nick Taylor-Vaisey said the association is disappointed that Joly did not address other measures such as tax incentives for businesses advertising in Canadian media. A major report commissioned by the government and published by the Public Policy Forum in January said that Google and Facebook now “pocket two of every three digital ad dollars spent in Canada.”

Taylor-Vaisey added the CAJ was also let down by Joly’s silence on introducing non-profit models of journalism in Canada.

“Hopefully it’s coming in some other form, somewhere down the line… maybe in the budget? I guess we’ll find out,” he said. “That’s what we wish we had seen and didn’t.”

While not in the context of digital advertising revenues, Joly did touch on the challenges Google and Facebook pose to the domestic news industry and said the government expects those Internet giants that “aggregate and share news … to do more.” On that note, she announced a new partnership between Facebook, Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone and the university’s school of journalism to create Canada’s ‘digital news incubator.’

“Participants will receive start-up funding and mentorship to accelerate innovative ideas that contribute to the digital development of journalism,” she said. “This is a welcome first step; our intention is to foster many more.”

Aside from that, the heritage minister said the government will renew and “strengthen” the mandate of CBC/Radio-Canada as part of its anticipated review of the federal Broadcasting Act and touted its new process to select the public broadcaster’s leadership.

As part of its broader investments into Canadian creators, however, the government says it will inject more money into the Canada Media Fund – which develops and finances the production of Canadian audiovisual content – to make up for declining contributions from Canadian broadcasters, whose revenues are dropping. But again, Joly did not say what level of funding the government would maintain, only saying it would be implemented in 2018.